How a Manufacturing Company creatively used snapADDY to improve their Service Process
Marcus Klapprodt
Recently, one of my clients in the machinery-manufacturing industry shared with me how they improved their service reporting process using snapADDY VisitReport.
I was amazed to see their innovative solution for digital service reports and wanted to share their story as a best practice example for other businesses in the industry.
Until recently, they were struggling with a paper-based system for service reports. The process was inefficient, error-prone, and time-consuming. The technicians had to manually fill out the report sheets and spent an unnecessary amount of time on documentation. On return to their headquarters, they entered the data from the sheet into an Excel file in a SharePoint folder. Once every two days, this file would be uploaded to their ERP-system.
The company realized that they needed a more efficient and accurate way to manage their service reports, since paper and Excel were a major bottleneck. They already used snapADDY VisitReport for their trade shows and just recently rolled it out for field sales. Thus, it seemed natural to explore other uses for snapADDY. In their Dashboard, the admins created a new VisitReport event for this purpose. The technicians would then take their mobile devices with the app installed to their on-site appointments.
After finishing their maintenance or repairs, they would open snapADDY and start a new report and import the customer data from their CRM-System, which helped to streamline the process further.
In the next step, they would take a photo of the type-label of the machine they were working on and fill out the service report. By using a cleverly designed template with custom-picklists, date-fields and the speech-to-text functionality, the service report was completed quickly and easily.
If needed, they would take additional pictures with the built-in attachments function. They could also add information to the attachments by drawing directly on the photo, for example circling the most damaged parts of the machine in red or marking attrition, to be able to order replacement parts in time.
After finishing the report, the technicians could immediately export the data, including all taken pictures, to their CRM system (which was synchronized to the ERP-system). An automatic workflow was triggered, that sent the PDF report to their customer and activated the invoicing process in their billing tool automatically.
As a result of implementing snapADDY VisitReport, the company's service process was streamlined, and the service reports were completed more efficiently and accurately. The technicians were able to provide better service to their customers, and the company's customer satisfaction rates increased. The company also saved time and money, as the new process reduced the need for manual data entry and eliminated errors associated with the paper-based system.
Would you also like to save time and money when entering visit reports?